What is secularism as opposed to secularization, the secular and secularity?  What distinguishes it from religious and “non-secular” politics, discourse and governance?  How have secular truths become socially realized? How have secular forms of political authority been legitimated? Drawing on innovate ethnographies and social theory, this reading-intensive course introduces students to the variety of secular experiences in cultures of secularism. We will consider a range of historical-ethnographic examples, focusing particularly on the limits of secularism in its modern encounter with Islam and Muslim communities in North Africa, the Middle East, Europe and North America.